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But vern--Oprah recommended it.  She also recommended Obama.  How could she be wrong?  Erm.

Do sales equal good?  Hmmm.  All time best sellers are The Bible and Atlas Shrugged.  In the '90's, the Turner Diaries sold 100,000 copies and was only not on the New York Times Best Seller List for ideological reasons (which I agree with, btw.)  I think we all know the answer to the question.  A book (or any work of art) is subjectively judged.  A best seller means that, in the sum total of individual decision making (known as the free market), enough people decided that they preferred it that it makes lists in newspapers that the sum total of decision makers decided were worth reading (e.g., The New York Times). Objectively, is a low selling book good, and a high selling book, bad?  Ask God, the World Historical Spirit, or their representatives on Earth--the Pope or Napoleon.  I only work here. lol

Glad you came back, Lauren.  Your story reminds me of Isaac Asimov.  He wrote popular, and some say, genre-changing stories back in the '50's.  He inspired George Lucas, who based his technology in Star Wars on Asimov (Asimov loved Star Wars).  Then, in the middle of one of those genre-changing narratives, he stopped writing science fiction entirely.  A trilogy of robot stories lacked its third book.  He did move on to popularizing science, and was good at that.  A lot like you going from poetry to story writing. Then in the 'eighties, he wrote the third robot novel, found a way to tie together the robot, empire, and foundation series inspiring the other dean of science fiction, Robert Heinlein, to do the same for his books, and wrote more in the foundation series.  He referred to his muse as his daemon (after Socrates).  Your daemon expresses your creativity, but it also takes care of you.  Glad you've found it again.

j.p., there are men who don't  grunt, swear and claims his partner as mine?  As far as clothing, there's a happy medium, and in fantasy, you have to go in detail, at least the first time, as people want to know--what are they wearing?  i sometimes just say a golden kirtle or a purple jerkin.  But you can fail to mention clothing too.  Kathy Reichs had an inadvertently hilarious scene when she had Tempe strip, go to bed nude, get up the next morning, realize that something was wrong, called the CSI's, and stood around as they checked.  She had gone to bed the night before nude, right?  No mention of her putting on clothes, so I imagined a scene where's she standing around naked, chatting with her colleagues while the investigation was going on. A simple, "I threw on my house robe" would have done, but then, I wouldn't have chuckled for half a day after reading that scene.

Hey, Doug.  Thanks for the warning on the ProWritingAid.  Some times, the old-fashioned way (doing it yourself) is the best.  As to time paradoxes, tell me about it.  The characters are also concerned and fear they might lose their minds tracking their own comings and goings.  I put in the latest astrophysicist theory that there are fourteen constants that have to be in exact relationship for life to exist.  Try a factorial analysis of that, it's a 1 in a lot of zeros possibility for us to exist.  So have a time traveler tramp around and if he changes the littlest thing the smallest way, and...

There is also the possibility of backward causation, and you bringing about the very thing you were trying to avoid (like Skynet bringing about John Connor's mother meeting his father, and...).

OK, folks. I have a dilemma.  I've sent Book II off to a publisher; rather than wait for the yea or nay, increasingly aware of all the flaws, scenes I would have done better, sentence reorganization needed, etc., I wrote Book IV.  (That was last week's project; don't know what will happen this week. lol).  Book IV is a murder mystery, and I think a rather good one.  I'd like to get your comments, but if I do, it will spoil the ending of Book III.  Before you reply, 'that sucks,' Book III has the following in common with Dorothy Sayer's "Busman's Honeymoon," in that it is full of description and the relationships, and the part of the ending that overlaps with Book IV, although providing the organization of the book, is a relatively secondary part.  Book IV fairly well ends the tetralogy, but not the Rhiannon saga.  Norm is right, the motive force of the stories is friendship in the most exotic of circumstances.  The characters are what is going to motivate the reader to move on to the next. There will be more Rhiannon stories.  But the saga that began with her being sent to New Dyved to marry King Ferrell and ends with (now, *that* would definitely be telling) is over in Book IV.  Book I through IV is actually one long (1600 pages) novel split into four parts. So what do you think?  Should I post it and get your feedback, or just edit it myself for a while, until most of you have gotten to the end of Book III?  I suppose I can always send it to Fiery Seas; things often happen backwards for me.  If everyone else sends a polished manuscript to Fiery Seas and gets a rejection in nine minutes, I could send a rough manuscript and get acceptance.  And heck, I've had nine-minute encounters that have been extremely pleasant.  I await what you suggest.

Well, as Norm observed, one of the master keys of my writing is friendship under the most exotic of circumstances. Another key is personal development.  We first meet Rhiannon as a superficial girl who wants to fit in with her new friends at court, is interested in fashion, and has a girl's crush on a middle age, exotic, alien marine  By the end of Book II she is risking the space-time continuum to protect her country, barking orders. As Gacela observed, she has adult conversations.  Book III has her taking command of her life and her kingdom.  Book IV, in the second draft, she hasn't really appeared yet--it more showcases Heather and her friends.  And the backdrop:  a technologically advanced society is exploiting a less advanced one, rationalizing it by thinking they are uplifting it (really making them depended on foreign technology).  But the advanced society has destroyed its environment and is merrily doing the same to the new planet.  A woman who comes from a more natural society, with magic, not technology, as the means for survival falls for a man from the techno-society.  Talk about star-crossed lovers. There is economics involved as well--the Terran exploitation is a blend of neocolonialism and the Great Leap Forward.  There's culture clash.  The sex in both Book I and Book II is way into the developing plot and is more diversionary than anything else. Not to say it isn't a significant point.  And Rhiannon herself is a mixture of 'Everywoman' and Wonder Woman.  Glad to have you join the party, John.  And that goes for all the close friends here.

Could be right, Gacela.  I was thinking of some continuity, sort of like "Death" in the J.D. Robb series:  You know, "Naked in Death," "Famous in Death," "Do Wah Diddy in Death." Back Home?  I don't know if that has the punch that "Exile," "Out of Exile" have.

Justin, that worked.  Thanks. And yours changed too.  lol

Congratulations, Randy.  That's why you're my favorite thriller writer (in fact, my only thriller writer, as I usually don't like that stuff.)

I'm reorganizing The Sword of Rhiannon.  It now ends at chapter 43, with chapter 44 (v. 2), the epilogue, so one ongoing mystery (who is the hooded figure and what does "Beware the Duck" mean) will be partially resolved.  (With a hook to the next Part, which sees the full resolution. In Part II, amystery will be emphasized. Now, the emphasis is on Rhiannon's running the kingdom--she deals with prisoners of war, her coronation, and her upcoming marriage. As you can see from the prologue to it, there is trouble ahead. But right now, it reads too much like "A Busman's Honeymoon," which had twenty pages of mystery and 350 of lifestyle. If you do decide to wade into this swamp, please let me know if that bothers you. It will be helpful in the re-write. Another note here. There is the Saga, as I call it. Goes from Book I (the prequel), which goes from Rhiannon's betrothal to the human king Ferrell, to her escape into the forest, to Book II, which goes from where Book I left off to the end of the war. Now, there will be Book III, which starts right after the war, but centers on the mystery of who killed Rhiannon's mother, briefly mentioned in Book II, against the backdrop of the coronation, the marriage, the return of the offworlders. Book IV is more a mystery story, as Modrin's murder remains unsolved by the end of Book III, although, it looks like it's solved. Book V is a mystery that can be read independently of the Saga, as it isn't mentioned when it takes place, although it still might spoil Book IV for you. Never fear, it won't be posted for a long while.

The reason for this reorganization is that a publisher asked me for a synopsis and the first three chapters, but was firm that my book couldn't be more than 120,000 words long.  (With Part II, it is over twice that.)  They said, "Well, if there's a natural break, just send us the book up to the break."  Wish me luck on this, but, as so often happens, publishers are right.  These days, a 1,000 word epic doesn't sell.  George R.R. Martin may have experienced the same thing, as all his volumes are really parts of a larger book.